William Gibson's Neuromancer vs Blade Runner

a) Encountering Metal Hurlant
William Gibson has a completely impoverished life with comics as a form, he had completely missed Marvel comics revolution, but caught onto the underground comics, such as the Robert Crumb era of Zap, and he eagerly absorbed this genre, hut when he was finally getting around to think about having a shot at writing science fiction, he had lost track of the underground comics. He was in his late twenties to early thirties when he was vaguely aware of Metal Hurlant and the French comic book artists, and then the comic book Heavy Metal came out which was the American version English language version of the publication. When Heavy Metal turned up in the corner store, he would glance through it but seldom bought it, he would thinking about it because frequently the artwork he saw there, particularly the work of the French comic book artists seemed more like the contents of his own head when he tried to write, than anything that he was seeing on the covers of the SF paperbacks and magazines.

b) Seeing Blade Runner
William Gibson was writing Neuromancer and he had this vision of a futuristic city in mind and he was afraid to watch Blade Runner in theater because he was afraid that the movie would be better than he was able to imagine. In a way he had the right to be afraid because even in the first few minutes, it looked better. He thought that his unfinished first novel was sunk and done for and everyone would assume that he took his visual texture from this astonishingly fine looking film. The simplest and most radical thing that Ridley Scott did in
Blade Runner was to put urban archaeology in every frame. It hadn't been
obvious to mainstream American science fiction that cities are like
compost heaps, just layers and layers of stuff. In cities, the past and
the present and the future can all be totally adjacent. In Europe, that's
just life - it's not science fiction, it's not fantasy. But in American
science fiction, the city in the future was always brand-new, every
square inch of it.

Panels from The Long Tomorrow from Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal that
inspired Ridley Scott Blade Runner city and William Gibson's The Sprawl

c)Benefitting from the flop
Then when Gibson found out that it was a box office flop, he thought
"Uh-oh". It seemed as if Ridley had got it right and no one at the time
cared.Neuromancer would succeed, and Gibson felt that because Blade Runner had bombed because the audience didn't seem to get it, relatively few people saw it and so it vanished, leaving almost no ripples, and the other things was that films didn't immediately come out on DVD in those days.

d)Arriving in Memetown
Where it went though, was straight through what Gibson saw as the collective membrane to Memetown, where silently it went nova, irradiating everything from clothing design to nightclub design and serious architecture. He was studying the astonishingly broad aesthetic impact on the world. What other movie he would ask has left actual office buildings in its stylistic wake? Some of this was already starting to happen in the gap between his submission of the manuscript and the novel's eventual publication. He also noted with interest, for instance, the fact that there was a London club called Replicants.

The Ivy in Covent Garden

e) Meeting with Ridley at the Ivy
Neuromancer was influenced in a large part by some of the artwork
that he
saw in Heavy Metal, he assumed it was also true for Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" as well as John Carpenter's
"Escape from New York"," and indeed all
other artefacts of the style would sometime be dubbed as 'cyberpunk'. Maybe a decade or more after Blade Runner was released, he met up for lunch with Ridley Scott at The Ivy and when the conversation turned to inspiration, they discussed mutual influences, and Gibson told Ridley what Neuromancer was made of, and Ridley had basically the same list of ingredients for Blade Runner. One of the most powerful ingredients was French adult comic books and their particular brand of Orientalia, and indeed that meant that they clearly had debts to the Metal Hurlant school of the 70s, with Moebius and the others.

Paris Review:There’s a famous story about your being unable to sit through Blade Runner while writing Neuromancer.

GIBSON:I was afraid to watch Blade Runner
in the theater because I was afraid the movie would be better than what
I myself had been able to imagine. In a way, I was right to be afraid,
because even the first few minutes were better. Later, I noticed that it
was a total box-office flop, in first theatrical release. That worried
me, too. I thought, Uh-oh. He got it right and ­nobody cares! Over a few
years, though, I started to see that in some weird way it was the most
influential film of my lifetime, up to that point. It affected the way
people dressed, it affected the way people decorated nightclubs.
Architects started building office buildings that you could tell they
had seen in Blade Runner. It had had an astonishingly broad aesthetic impact on the world.
I met Ridley Scott years later, maybe a decade or more after Blade Runner was released. I told him what Neuromancer was made of, and he had basically the same list of ingredients for Blade Runner.
One of the most powerful ingredients was French adult comic books and
their particular brand of Orientalia—the sort of thing that Heavy Metal
magazine began translating in the United States.

But the simplest and most radical thing that Ridley Scott did in Blade Runner was
to put urban archaeology in every frame. It hadn’t been obvious to
mainstream American science fiction that cities are like compost
heaps—just layers and layers of stuff. In cities, the past and the
present and the future can all be totally adjacent. In Europe, that’s
just life—it’s not science fiction, it’s not fantasy. But in American
science fiction, the city in the future was always brand-new, every
square inch of it.

INTERVIEWER:Cities seem very important to you.
GIBSON:Cities look
to me to be our most characteristic technology. We didn’t really get
interesting as a species until we became able to do cities—that’s when
it all got really diverse, because you can’t do cities without a
substrate of other technologies. There’s a mathematics to it—a city
can’t get over a certain size unless you can grow, gather, and store a
certain amount of food in the vicinity. Then you can’t get any bigger
unless you understand how to do sewage. If you don’t have efficient
sewage technology the city gets to a certain size and everybody gets
cholera.(http://www.theparisreview.org)

ANY POST TO THE DISCUSSIONS ATTRIBUTED TO ME, EVER, IS FAKE

I won’t be posting to the discussions. Neither will I post there under any assumed persona(e).

OH WELL, WHILE I’M HERE: BLADERUNNER

BLADERUNNER
came out while I was still writing Neuromancer. I was about a third of
the way into the manuscript. When I saw (the first twenty minutes of)
BLADERUNNER, I figured my unfinished first novel was sunk, done for.
Everyone would assume I’d copped my visual texture from this
astonishingly fine-looking film. But that didn’t happen. Mainly I think
because BLADERUNNER seriously bombed in theatrical release, and films
didn’t pop right back out on DVD in those days. The general audience
didn’t seem to get it, relatively few people saw it, and it simply
vanished, leaving nary a ripple. Where it went, though, was straight
through the collective membrane to Memetown, where it silently went
nova, irradiating everything from clothing-design to serious
architecture. What other movie has left actual office-buildings in its
stylistic wake? Some of this was already starting to happen in the gap
between my submission of the manuscript and the novel’s eventual
publication; I noted with interest, for instance, the fact of a London
club called Replicants.

William Gibson:By the time I was finally getting around to thinking about having a shot at writing science fiction, I'd even lost track of the undergrounders. This was later in my late twenties, early thirties, I think I was vaguely aware of Metal Hurlant and those French guys, and then Heavy Metal began. When Heavy Metal turned up in the corner store, I'd glance through it but seldom bought it. I did think about Heavy Metal though, because frequently the artwork I saw there, particularly the stuff by those French guys, looked far more like the contents of my own head, when I tried to write, than anything I was seeing on the covers of SF paperbacks or magazines. (Introduction for the Neuromancer graphic novel.)

William Gibson:So it's entirely fair to say, and I've said it before, that the
way Neuromancer-the-novel "looks" was influenced in large part by some
of the artwork I saw in 'Heavy Metal'. I assume that this must also be
true of John Carpenter's 'Escape from New York', Ridley Scott's 'Blade
Runner'", and all other artefacts of the style sometimes dubbed
'cyberpunk'. Those French guys, they got their end in early. (Introduction for the Neuromancer graphic novel.)

William Gibson:...Years later, I was having lunch with Ridley, and when the
conversation turned to inspiration, we were both very clear about our
debt to the Metal Hurlant [the original Heavy Metal magazine] school of
the '70s--Moebius and the others...(Details Magazine (Oct.1992) )

William Gibson:It was inspired by me flipping through the English-language edition of Heavy Metal
at the corner store, and usually not buying it. But it was the look of
it. I had kind of, some people would say a really impoverished life with
comics as a form. I was really into them when I was a kid, as all kids
were then. And I was really into them in my early teens, but that was
interrupted by various changes in my life in my early teens, and because
of that, I completely missed the Marvel revolution. I just never had
that as part of my life. So I didn’t come back to college until the R.
Crumb era of Zap,
and underground comics, and I eagerly absorbed a bunch of those. After
that, it’s never really been part of my media diet, in the way that I’m
sure they would be now, if I had been born 10 or 20 years later.(http://www.wired.com/2012/09/interview-with-william-gibson/)